


Irresistible

by shinychimera, Yeomanrand



Series: Gravity Series [4]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Misunderstanding, POV Male Character, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-21
Updated: 2011-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-23 22:31:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/255761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinychimera/pseuds/shinychimera, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard still doesn't understand how the powerful attraction between he and Jim has flung him out into the dark alone — but it's possible the stars and planets may align to give them a second chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Irresistible

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [sangueuk](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sangueuk/pseuds/sangueuk) for thoughtful and helpful beta reading.

Leonard traces lazy spirals in the beer sweat on the bar, trying to focus on the sensation of wet stone under his fingers instead of chasing his own tail about being at The Ragged Edge by himself on this fine canicule evening. He tips back the long neck and polishes off the last couple of swallows.

Ostensibly, he'd come to celebrate passing his last flight exams; he'd even done well enough to be offered an opportunity for shuttle pilot certification. Only thing is, he wouldn't have gotten as far as he did if Jim hadn't pushed him, and difficult Jim is exactly who he's been trying very hard not to think about in the months since they fizzled out; part of the reason he's here alone.

But he's been marinating in his misery long enough, and he slides off the stool and gives the bartender a little wave as he passes her by. He heads out into the still, hot evening, determined to find something more constructive to do with himself.

He's walked half a block downhill before he realizes where gravity is carrying him, and he makes himself stop. Hands in pockets, Leonard takes a deep breath, staring up at the ineluctable radiance of the moon.

Wallowing's no good for him, but outright avoidance is worse. He might as well take a cue from the clear night around him: he's focused hard on his schooling and the research he's doing at the Academy Hospital, but otherwise he's let himself drift in a solitary fog for weeks on end now.

 _So what_ do _you want, then, Leonard?_

His imprudent heart continues to yearn toward the strip of sand and rock below, one of the few places he always felt in sync with Jim, some elusive resonance there between pounding feet and pounding hearts and pounding surf.

Jim won't be there, of course, not on a Friday night with all the pleasures of the city to hold his attention. Maybe he doesn't go there at all, anymore; maybe he's avoiding all the places their memories cling, same as Leonard has been.

He lets himself take the stairs winding down from behind the close-packed houses and shops to Baker Beach. He remembers walking and running here with Jim, late at night and early in the morning; breathing ragged, shoulders nearly brushing, strides almost in concert. Following the bike path, sand crunching under his boots, Leonard glances at the Academy buildings above, on the bluffs which taper toward the Golden Gate ahead.

The illuminated bridge glows indefatigably orange; laddered pillars refusing to relinquish the sunset.

What he wants is to go back to the days when Jim's presence was a reliable constant in his life, before or after suppressed desire had drawn them together, but above all before his niggling wish for _more_ had eaten its way between he and Jim.

The waves keep on pounding, without the accompaniment of heavy feet or heartbeats. Leonard leans on the lonely marker rock at the base of the sloping cliff, not yet ready to face the climb, or the Academy, or any of the people in it.

He hadn't wanted to change Jim, not really. He's been down that road before, on both sides, and if he learned one thing from his disaster of a marriage it was the dangers of illusion: being in love with the person someone might _become_ was different from loving the person in front of you right _now_.

Problem was, Jim had swept him out far deeper than he'd ever expected to go again. Getting used to silence and waking up alone was one thing; but all the voiceless mysteries, all the ways Jim held himself back — Leonard had never been able to gain his footing, find his bearings. He'd found no solid ground with Jim, and eventually his endurance had given out and he'd had to turn back to shore.

Even when he'd told Jim he couldn't handle the fog between them anymore, the kid had hardly blinked, much less protested. Jim's utter lack of reaction had hurt more than anything else; Leonard couldn't shake the impression that Jim had been ready for it to be over, had just been waiting for an out.

Leonard shakes his head, shedding the lingering cobwebs of anger, and climbs the slab of cold stone. He's still not a billy goat and he slips a bit on the way up. He settles heavily onto the irregular surface and inspects the shallow scrape on his palm, trying to draw the ache of loneliness close enough to take a good hard look at without falling back into the wallow.

After Jim disappeared, only one thing had saved Leonard from his own desiccating bitterness: someone with both guts and sense — someone he suspected was named Phil Boyce — had assigned strong-minded Nancy Gerhart as his lab assistant. She was a vivacious woman with a taste for cantankerous men, and their rapport had bloomed into a tentative but easy romance. He'd known exactly where he fit in her life, been certain they were a needed respite for each other rather than a destination or a destiny. No marriage, no long future in the cards for the two of them. Just temporary stability, mutual need, and a gentle reassurance that neither of them were irredeemably broken where relationships were concerned.

He'd hardly seen Jim at all during the brief period he and Nancy had been carrying on; the few times he had, there'd been a crowd of cadets around, magnetic Jim the center of attention as always. Since she'd gone — disengaging as sweetly as she'd arrived, to pursue a stellar opportunity with an archaeological expedition — Leonard's seen Jim at mess more often, shared the occasional meal, and Jim's been friendly enough, but distant. There's been no racing commentary about whatever Jim's incandescent mind has grabbed onto from his lessons or discussions, and neither of them has broached the subject of resuming their morning ritual on this forsaken beach.

With a harsh sigh, Leonard bows his head and listens to the steady heartbeat of the waves rushing in and flowing out.

He _wants_ Jim back in his life. He wants to find a way to accept his comings and goings. But Jim isn't just enigmatic or eccentric; he's erratic, a rogue planet loosed from the system from which he came, drifting in the dark and deliberately shunning the light of any star longing to hold him. So far as Leonard knows, nothing has changed.

The soft spatter of dirt falling from the bluff behind him is nearly lost beneath the surf; Leonard wonders if some tide of the moonlight pulls his gaze upwards to the point on the winding path above where confounded Jim looks down at him.

Leonard's breath catches, and he can't help his slight smile. At the same time, though, he waits. He needs to know if the enigma will come to _him_ — needs some small clue as to what _Jim_ wants.

His silhouette is still as the figurehead of a tall ship for long moments, until Leonard's convinced himself six times over Jim's about to bolt.

Finally, Jim lifts a hand in tentative greeting, or maybe a plea to wait, before he backs off down the path. Leonard hears him sliding his way down through the scraggly growth on the hillside, until he emerges from the darkness onto the sand, pale features illuminated by the mellow silver moonlight.

Leonard's smile broadens just a titch, his thumb stroking over the scrape on his palm.

 _Don't wish_.

He drinks Jim in, just as he is, and doesn't try to guess at what comes next.

Jim's eyes are fixed on the boulder, not on Leonard, and his tongue grazes the underside of his upper lip. He climbs with an enviable grace and settles cross-legged within arm's reach, gazing at the dark horizon as if Leonard isn't there. His profile is as difficult as ever to read, but the line of his shoulders curls over like a thundercloud.

After a moment, Jim looks down, pries a pebble out of a crack in the rock, and brushes off the detritus. "I didn't expect to find you here."

"I was heading back from the Edge. Stopped to admire the view," Leonard says, trying to keep his voice level while telling the familiar heartache and stubborn hope quarreling behind his ribs that they can both just simmer down.

"It's a very nice view." Jim tilts his chin a bit, as if contemplating the picture. His fingers roll the pebble in a steady circuit around the pad of his thumb. "Look even nicer from a shuttle cockpit, eh, pilot? Ninety-four percent."

"Heard, did you?" There's no reason his throat should tighten; of course Jim heard, he's got his ear to the ground about lots of things. "Passed, anyway."

"That's better than passing. You did good." He's trying for jovial, but as so often with Jim, the words ring hollow, feeling and tone out-of-sync in some indefinable way.

"I thought about comming you," Leonard confesses, giving a tight little shrug. If Jim hadn't come up with the clever idea of re-programming his practice sims so he'd had medical readouts rather than the shuttle's usual while he was still learning, he wouldn't have passed at all.

"You had a good co-pilot. You didn't need me."

Leonard flinches from the double meaning in Jim's level statement.

"That's—" Leonard catches himself. "I meant afterward."

For the first time, Jim cuts his eyes toward Leonard, but he tightens his lips as if " _why didn't you_ " is a question that doesn't need to be asked. The flash of — uncertainty? — so quickly gone, is pressure in the wrong place and the dam Leonard has trapped his questions and emotions behind finally breaks.

"Damn it, Jim, tell me it _matters_ , or that you're angry, or whatever the hell is going on in that heart of yours!"

Jim goes very still, gazing at him with sphinx-like calm, unruffled water hiding the rushing current beneath. Leonard flattens his hands against the stone.

"Please, Jim."

"I...wanted...to be there. With you. For you." He sounds distant as the stars. "But. I know that's not...what you want. So."

"I wanted you there. Didn't figure you'd come."

Jim looks down at his feet, crossed beneath him on the speckled rock. Two, three sets of waves roll in before he speaks, so softly the fourth almost drowns him out.

"I'll always be there for you. If you ask me to."

"You have no idea how much I wish I could trust that, Jim. But even when we were sleepin' together regular..." He shakes his head. "Sometimes you weren't."

"I know." Not an ounce of shame or regret, he's not even _trying_ to sound... No, Leonard realizes, Jim's not trying to _fake_ it. Not now.

"Why? S'what I kept asking myself, you know. Why you were courting me at all. Why sometimes you'd be there, and sometimes you'd just no-show. Why you'd never stay, no matter what I tried, and why you wouldn't even let me ask." The words hurt to say after keeping them in so long; he's sure Jim can hear the underlying ache but he doesn't react, just stares down at the fastenings on his boots.

"I'm...bad at this, Bones. Bad for you. I can't give you what you need."

"I'm thinkin' neither of us are goin' to be winnin' any relationship awards any time soon," he grumbles. "Why'd you come to me in the first place?"

Jim taps his pebble a couple times against the boulder, and then suddenly he's on his feet, hucking the little stone as far as he can out into the waves. Leonard shies, caught off guard by the speed and the vehemence of the movement, but keeps his behind planted on the boulder. The clear moonlight leaves no shadows for Jim to hide in; paints the muscles that clench under t-shirt and jeans, the soft lips spilling terse words.

"I thought it might be different. With you."

"Different how? No, wait. Scratch that. Any relationship's going to be a troublesome, messy thing on account of having people in it. Bad comes with the good, in all kinds of ways, and even at its easiest it takes work and communication to see the damn thing through. On all sides. If you're hopin' to find something different than _that_ , Jim, you're shit out of luck."

If anything, Jim's face gets stonier, bleaker.

Leonard doesn't get it. Jim gives his all to everything he does, from fucking to existential calculus; he's not afraid to try, or to fail. He'd just never seemed to care enough to put the work into their relationship, to assign Leonard's feelings a halfway-decent ranking among his myriad priorities.

And now — Jim doesn't answer, doesn't argue, doesn't offer the slightest hint whether he _wants_ to resurrect the bittersweet thing between them. Leonard brings his hands up to scrub at his face, half-expecting Jim to be gone again when he takes them away.

Instead, he crouches back on his haunches, balancing on the uneven rock beside Leonard, still looking out at the spot where his stone's ripples have been absorbed by the waves.

The silence stretches on and on.

Leonard studies Jim's profile, waiting for a response he doesn't seem inclined to give, not knowing how to read the impassive tension he sees. Without words or voice or body language to chew on, Leonard's thoughts fold back on themselves.

Jim thought it might be different. With Leonard.

What if Jim _had_ been putting the work in? What if, of all the things Jim masters so effortlessly, he's simply _bad_ at meeting someone heart to heart instead of mind to mind?

Leonard had been floored the first time he'd realized his assumptions about Jim were wrong. He might have expected a meaningless seduction given Jim's reputation, but his gift had been a timorous opening, an offering, anything but a selfish whim. Heart sinking like Jim's pebble, he realizes how much Jim has relied on wordless touch to get his true feelings across, that very first night and every night since.

_One bit of misinformation, one piece of missing data..._

_And any man without presumptions knows only asses make assumptions._

Of course Jim hadn't been surprised when things ended, if he always has this much of an uphill struggle to connect.

"I screwed up," Leonard admits, voice breaking across the tireless rush of the waves. "I didn't call a halt because I wanted you out of my life, Jim. Kind of exactly the opposite; felt like I might be needing you a little too much. 'Fraid it never crossed my mind until just now that you mighta been just as scared."

Jim blinks slowly, staring out at the starry night.

"I." Jim struggles with the words like they're a hundred kilos apiece. "Gave you...everything I know how to give. It's not enough."

Leonard sighs. "Not when I didn't _know_ that, it wasn't. I'm startin' to get a glimmer how hard this is for you."

"I think too much, Bones," Jim says wearily, and he's so damned matter-of-fact; Leonard would have to be even less intuitive than he has been, not to recognize it's something Jim's been told all his life. "And I don't — I'm not good at — showing people the feelings they need from me. I can lie, for a day. For a night. For a couple nights. But not to you. I thought...with you — I could... _do_ this. Without lying."

Leonard reaches out, touches Jim's calf lightly.

"Don't want you to lie for me. You don't have to be someone you're not. I'm kind of fond of the person you are, silences an' thinking an' all." He hesitates, trying to figure out how to articulate what he wants to say next. "But I can't operate in a vacuum, Jim. You have trouble sayin' what you feel, well, hell, you're not the only one. We can find a way to make that work—but I've got to know what we are to each other. What you _want_."

Leonard lets the silence drag on, lets Jim gaze inscrutably at the tumult of the breaking waves, recognizing now that his emotions are struggling to escape from some deep, dark place.

"I want..." Jim lowers his eyes, finally. "I want to love you."

A chill washes through Leonard, the utterly unexpected shift in magnetic north tightening his throat. He shifts closer to Jim, reaches an arm around his shoulder, and draws him down from his precarious crouch to a more solid seat snugged up against Leonard.

"That," he says, voice rough and plaintive as a wave-torn gale, "we can definitely work with."

Jim bows his head against Leonard's shoulder, and Leonard can feel the unexpressed tension thrumming through every muscle in his body. Heart shuddering, Leonard dredges the fallow words he needs to say from the depths of his broken soul.

"I can be an ass, Jim, but I do love you. And I'm willing to try again if you are."

Jim closes his eyes and turns his head, pressing his cheek harder to Leonard's bicep. Another aching breath, and he scrambles to get closer, all awkward knees and fumbling legs over and around Leonard's lap so his hands can clutch at Leonard's ribcage until he gets enough purchase to pull them chest-to-chest, hearts pounding just out of sync. He hides his face against Leonard's neck, lips nudging an electric _frisson_ through him. Leonard curls one hand around Jim's hip, lifts the other to cup the back of his neck, murmurs into Jim's ear.

"Missed you, kid."

Jim's head whips up fast enough to nearly clip Leonard's jaw with his temple, his eyes flash, and his mouth slams into Leonard's, hot and demanding. Jim's ferocity he knows well, but this time Leonard responds with a fervor all his own, raking fingers into Jim's hair — understanding for the first time: _this_ is how Jim loves him.

[](http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y135/shinychimera/Artwork_by_Shinychimera/IrresistableKiss.png)He kisses like a starving man, speaking — plainly, passionately — with his lips and his fingers, and it's not just rambunctious desire. Somewhere along the line Jim must have learned to distrust words for sharing what's in his heart, for asking for the things he needs.

Disfluent but determined, Leonard speaks back to Jim in his own language, cradling the back of his head against the breathless depths of the kiss. He draws a hand across Jim's waist, up under the tee so he can feel the warm skin just above his jeans, the slide of the muscles trying to pull Leonard ever tighter.

Leonard tugs gently at Jim's hair, asking for and receiving just enough space to speak.

"Stay with me tonight, Jim. Right through to morning." He strokes his fingers along Jim's nape, and Jim looks back, mouth half-open, need magnified beneath the shine of his pale blue eyes — and he still takes too long to give the wrong answer.

"It won't...I can't—"

Leonard stiffens, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from giving away the hurt tearing at his gut, shifting his weight with every intention of pushing Jim off his lap. Jim shakes his head roughly and yanks his hands back from around Leonard's chest, grips his face with near-painful intensity instead.

"Please, Leonard. I can't stay — sleep — in your room. But will you, please, will you come to mine instead? Will you stay with me?"

Leonard lifts his eyes again, tasting blood, and looks long and hard at Jim under the eloquent moonlight.

Jim, who has never before used his given name. Who _takes_ what he wants, where Leonard's concerned, never asks. Whose breath catches short in his throat, and whose pupils are wide and fragile in a taut, unreadable face.

Who has never invited Leonard — or maybe anyone — to share _his_ space.

Stars could burn out before Leonard manages to nod.

"All right," he says, voice hoarse. "All right, Jim. I'll come to your room, tonight, and stay."

Tension leaches out of both of them, lost into the stone beneath or pulled out to sea with the retreating tide. Leonard's arms slide back around Jim, hands settling flat and warm against his spine, and their kiss travels an arc of inevitability, two bodies pulled around a common barycenter in perfect synchrony. A mutual gravity trembles through them, closing the space between until they're of one skin, one equal temper.

Alongside them, the waves sing long rumbling poems up the margins of the beach. Jim pulls back slow and careful, fingers sliding gently down Leonard's cheeks. His tongue teases his upper lip again.

One last piece at the puzzle's center settles into place for Leonard, and he gives Jim a crooked smile.

"Don't need you to say another word. Promise."

 

  


**Author's Note:**

> _One equal temper of heroic hearts,  
>  Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will  
>  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.  
> _  
>  ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses" | [](http://yeomanrand.livejournal.com/61359.html) |  For your listening pleasure:  
> 
> 
> [Aphelion/Perihelion](http://yeomanrand.livejournal.com/61359.html)  
>  a fanmix for the "Gravity" Series  
>   
> ---|---|---


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